Coachella week 2.0 started off with a bang! The Glitch Mob crushed the weekend with another brilliant set, pulling out all the tricks and turnarounds their fans (including myself) will hopefully retain for a lifetime. Here’s a few choice pics of their set, taken by my good friend/super-producer/system-smashing Professor Bang!

Sunset – minutes before our set starts

Drive [the spaceship] like you stole it

14z4r5

The Mob

Hands up!

The spaceship has landed

Massive

bright

BRIGHTER

THE WILD ONES

While an HD video of the live stream was broadcast through Coachella, I’ve only been able to find a few clips of their set online. I did find this official Thank You video the festival produced to recap both weekends, can anyone count how many hidden cameos they make over its 2.5 minute duration? (Easter egg: the background song Coachella chose for this video was written by VirtualBoy, a member of our opening act on the tour Penthouse Penthouse!)

The beautiful thing about running a show in the same location twice in a row, is the second time around is the equipment is already dialed in from the previous show, happily waiting for you. The kinks have been sorted and it’s all about fine-tuning, really locking in the details and helping to facilitate the best possible performance for the audience to enjoy. The band feels comfortable and confident after a solid run-through and for the most part, everything flows effortlessly.

Tech Tip: Next time you have the opportunity of catching a show on the first or second night, go for round two! Nothing puts a performance over the top like a little Practice & Polish.

Part of Coachella’s legacy is their reputation for taking care of their artists and crew. Here’s a few pics of good times I took on the grounds this year, backstage and behind-the-scenes:

Of course, no trip would be complete without a little Hotel studio session:

Q: When’s the best time to work on music? A: Do you have 5 minutes?

Sometimes the only time you get to work on music or a hobby is when you’re forced into isolation. Some of my best material has been written on plane trips across the country, trapped in a hotel room, or sitting in airports! I always bring a cube tap with me to airports so there’s always an outlet available, eliminating the need to confront that MMA fighter hogging all the juice with his iPad.

Remember, when checking luggage at an airport, don’t cause yourself a headache by overpacking! Our Production Manager Harrybarry has it down to a science with a 49 lb. pack! This time I managed to squeak by without cross-loading into my carry-on:

How does a suitcase full of tools, clothes, and music equipment check in? (hint – think mouse)

Thanks to everyone for an amazing two weekends! I will leave you with an overhead view of our tent, taken by a helicopter shortly before the festival started. It perfectly encapsulates the magic these grounds convey over hundreds of hours of continuous music across 6 stages, for music lovers, by music lovers.

Coachella lived up to every expectation I hoped it would – great performance, huge energy, massive sound, fanatic crowd! Coachella is one of the world’s biggest music festivals, located near Palm Springs in LA, hosting 200,000 fans and over 180 bands/DJ’s over two weekends. This year we’re enjoying the sounds of Skrillex, Outkast, Pharrell, Arcade Fire, Netsky (one of my favorite producers), and of course your friends The Glitch Mob! Those of you who caught their set at the Sahara tent witnessed a piece of history in the making – their full stage setup, The Blade, just after sunset, unsheathed and cutting straight to the heart of why we are all there – to dance with friends and be moved by the energy emanating in waves from the stage.

Feel the energy yet? No? You will soon! This pic is from setup, 10 hours before our show

The Sahara Tent holds, aside from about 30,000 people (12,000 if the Fire Marshal asks), special meaning; last year’s Coachella showed my girlfriend and me an amazing time as we camped with good friends and spent the next 3 days dancing in Sahara, where Leannah taught me to shuffle to the beats of Wolfgang Gartner, Benny Benassi, Hardwell and countless others. I was blown away by the sound and hoped I’d be able to one day drive the system, and perform onstage as Anoctave. This weekend makes 1 for 2, next year’s goal is to invert my perspective from FOH!

I’m finding the best thing that can be done for your career and life is to focus on a goal, allowing it to shape and guide every action of your day, and seek a path in every opportunity that presents itself – techniques I learned from one of my favorite books, Think and Grow Rich, as recommended to me by Steve Nalepa who has helped to shape this tour in many indirect (?) ways. I owe much to him, The Glitch Mob, and especially PK Sound (thanks Ari!) in helping me to where I am today. In reality, I would be lost in life without the light of so many great inspirations, shedding a path before me.

<Tech Talk>

This first weekend of Coachella was especially momentous for The Glitch Mob and Crew, as it was proof-of-concept that The Blade could be used effectively for large festivals, meaning they are able to put on a full-scale production and performance, as opposed to being limited to a DJ set (which is generally a necessity due to time constraints of moving a large set).

Artists typically have 15-20 minutes after the performer before them finishes their set, to move the entire setup onto the stage simultaneously with the previous set being removed. During this period of time the sound engineer plays house music (though not always House music) providing an opportunity for artists to setup, while keeping the energy up for the crowd as dance-music shows tend to be lost in silence.

Is that an earmuff? Nope – just the only working side of some recently-busted headphones

While 20 minutes may seem a long time to transition – and in the case of DJ’s who are sharing a similar setup it generally doesn’t take that long – moving an entire set as complex as The Blade, followed by re-checking all the lines, lights, and gizmos that make it tick so that the audience and band have a seamless experience, is a complicated undertaking that can take on many forms. It isn’t the process of a single person or even a small team, but a series of teams working together in harmony. Rat Sound provided the sound system for our tent (and indeed, all of Coachella), and did a great job contributing their speed and professionalism to our combined efforts. I had the opportunity of chatting with Dave Rat, owner of Rat Sound and FOH for one of my favorite bands Red Hot Chili Peppers, and expressed my appreciation for providing a solid system and team (as well as inspiring me to start this Log of Rhythm after reading his blog Roadies in the Midst, legendary to roadies of all shapes and sizes).

</Tech Talk>

This is great news for all you Glitch Mob fans, as it means we will be able to bring the full TGM Experience to festivals around the world! We are playing many of the major festivals coming up this year, including Lollapalooza, Governor’s Ball, Bonnaroo, Osheaga, and Electric Forest – and though it has yet to be determined how many will accommodate our full setup, the speed and accuracy this weekend was executed with adds even more of a driving force behind our tour. And of course, you can catch The Blade at any of our headlining shows this year, we will be playing all across the US and you can see the full tour schedule on The Glitch Mob’s website…if we’re not playing in your town, don’t despair! We have more shows in the works, details of which will be soon revealed.

I think that’s it for this entry, I will leave you with a Family Photo of the Mob taken with their fans at the end of their set in the Sahara Tent – see me at FOH, way back there in the distance? No? Take a closer look, you may have to zoom in about 400%, I am the tiny pixel in the middle of the tech tent with a huge grin on my face, wearing a black Cabbie cap and half a set of headphones.

Capping off our first leg of the tour, last night in Austin was possibly the most electrified show yet! Penthouse Penthouse, Ana Sia, and Glitch Mob all played dynamic and seemingly effortless sets, while technical execution behind the scenes went exactly as planned (see: Transparent). A telling sign of a good performer is for the crowd to be moved without being able to explain why (see: Sunset). A telling sign of a good production team, be it sound, lighting, video or otherwise – is for the audience to never even know they are there (see: Ninja).

From the first note of the night, the crowd was hit with a flurry of 8-bit and bit-crushed melodies, cascading through a waterfall of arpeggios, initially ushered through the speakers by Penthouse Penthouse (of Team Supreme) who have supported us as openers throughout the tour. Team Supreme are proteges of Producer-turned-teacher Steve Nalepa of Dubspot; one of The Glitch Mob’s first ever songs was a remix of Nalepa’s “Monday”, adding steam to the theory of band manager Kev Wolff that “It All Lends Itself.”

Penthouse Penthouse perfectly sets the scene for Ana Sia, crate-digging legend of the LA Beat scene, to ignite the dancefloor with her own electric spin. As a DJ who knows her music A side to B, one song leads smoothly into another, the steady pulse of beats and bass breaking just long enough for the audience to catch their second, third, and fifth wind.

Ana Sia on decks

The combined force of two consistently solid openers creates the perfect storm for The Glitch Mob to blow open the floodgates, letting loose a maelstrom of melody. This last show in particular – with a hyped crowd and spotless performance – was a great way to close out the first run of the tour to a sold-out room, with well over 2,000 fans lighting up the night. Our first stretch as a team – and the first time TGM has played live in nearly 4 years – has served as a testing ground for The Blade, (pictured below), and the many elements that power it.

Our next run navigates us through a winding landscape of music festivals, each with their own quirks, some tossing slow-balls and others aiming to throw a rock in the machine. However, by sorting through the spontaneous technical challenges in these first few weeks – refining, rethinking and even overhauling our methods, we are all growing more honed in sharpening our skills and – collectively – The Blade.

While we’re only a month or so into the tour, the scope of the new things I’ve learned is hard to put into words. The music I produce as Anoctave (if you’re interested, my Soundcloud) has already adapted, from seeing up-close how masters of the craft apply song structure, balancing different instruments and their roles in the song, while maintaining a moving and cohesive experience throughout a performance that many will retain for a lifetime.

Next up – Ultra Music Festival in Miami, followed by Coachella, Electric Forest, and many dates in between. Aside from festivals, we will be playing venues the West Coast and Midwest, so if you’re near LA or San Francisco be sure to see it for yourself! I’m especially looking forward to The Warfield where I’ve enjoyed life-changing performances from Amon Tobin and Skrillex, one of my absolute favorite venues in my hometown of SF!

If you have any comments/pictures to post please feel free to send – I will continue to update this blog with our next leg (starting with Coachella) and my time on the road. Hope to see you soon!

Ah, Buku – our first music festival as a team, and we are headlining our stage. Buku takes place in beautiful New Orleans, home to a profusion of culture and Cajun food (coincidentally, two of my favorite things) – and of course the hometown of Ooah, where he first picked up the drum sticks that would roll him into the world of music and producing.

Producer’s Corner: Today I learned that, when producing music (and bass-driven music in particular) you need to be mindful of the sort of sound systems you plan on performing through. For example, in the early years of your career, it’s a little tricky to successfully perform songs that focus on “deep bass”, such as 30-40hz.

When translated to the key of a song, this would be somewhere between a (very) low C and E. Part of the reason is because smaller clubs with a capacity of, say, less than 800 people, typically don’t invest in Subwoofers that go much below 40 or 50hz, so they will be missing a large element of your song. Until recently, it didn’t make much sense to do so, for a simple reason – typical instruments used by bands don’t go below 40 hz, which is an open low E string on a bass guitar.

It was long thought – and taught to me in school – that there isn’t musical information below 50hz, which is considered by some as merely “Sub-bass”. This is indicative of the old-school mindset that dominated the industry before electronic dance music came to overshadow traditional bands, clearly illustrated by the many EDM (Electronic Dance Music) festivals that pull hundreds of thousands of fans in a single weekend, something the live industry (though I love it dearly) doesn’t succeed in outperforming.

What I’m getting at is there is musical information all the way down to the lowest note in the human hearing range – although it may be harder for our ears to discern slight frequency deviations at those low notes, and that it’s important to keep mind that every frequency in the entire sound spectrum relates to a musical key, and that if you’re writing a song in C – while you should try to have some presence at 30hz, the fundamental frequency C corresponds with – you will be best off focusing on its next octave, 60hz, when playing on sound systems in smaller rooms. Just something to keep in mind (and I try to take my own advice) when writing your next banger!

PK CX800’s we tour with – ultra-low frequency response!

</Producer’s Corner>

Back to Buku, where we start our morning with the shuttle arriving nearly 30 minutes late to pick up the crew from the hotel. By the time we arrive to the scene our Semi truck waits idly, still fat and loaded to the brim with an entire production’s worth of video, lighting, and sound, beckoning us to lighten its load.

It’s easy to imagine that headlining would permit an extended period of time for setup and soundcheck; to the contrary, this has to be our fastest setup yet with a total of 4 hours between load-in and cutoff. With the entire set to bring in and ensure everything is checked and ready to roll, it’s worth noting there really is no “holding doors” for a music festival with thousands of fans foaming at the mouth to hit the multiple stages these grounds have to offer.

Fortunately the crew – seasoned professionals who are all too familiar with the importance of keeping a cool head under pressure – works together in getting the stage set with our entire production, cutting our setup time nearly in half. It is, for me personally, an easier setup than usual – with no option of bringing my PK CX800 subs to the stage, I am mixing on a D&B rig today. I perform a quick phase test to make sure the system is properly aligned, and to my relief I find the production company has done a good job of setting the table.

Though a “flat” sound system – one that produces an even and full frequency response across the entire human hearing range, flat with respect to the output signal matching the input signal – will sound good with virtually any type of well-produced music, tuning a system for The Glitch Mob calls for minor system adjustments that lend to their signature sound.

<Tech Talk>

Theoretically, a perfect sound system will accurately reproduce the material that is sent to it; every dB of every frequency being transmitted and evenly spread throughout the room. However in “the real world”, where artists and techs are typically forced to operate, much like a penguin wanting to fly, we are striving to achieve a goal that is in a sense impossible to fully realize due to the laws of physics/acoustics…though that is actually part of the fun, like assembling a puzzle as close to completion as possible, while understanding that you are – and always will be – a few pieces short. As time passes and techniques improve those pieces become less noticeable, like a blue tile missing from a puzzle of the Pacific Ocean.

Puzzle – Fingering Zen

Throughout the conversion process, from the sound the instrument produces acoustically, to the microphone that transmits its vibrations into electrical energy into the mixing console to be converted into a Digital signal, then out of the console and converted back into the Analog world, then sent to the sound system processors, which do yet another digital-to-analog conversion before sending the sound to the speakers, which finally convert the electrical energy back into acoustic energy into the real world (head spinning yet?) – there are bound to be minor variances that will “transform” the original signal, intentionally or otherwise, into sounding different than it did at the beginning of its journey.

Furthermore – and here’s the real caveat – any room or outdoor space that the sound system transmits acoustic energy into will “color” the overall sound, as walls and other surfaces (even trees) will reflect certain frequencies back at each other, causing dips and peaks depending on where in the room you are standing.

Try it yourself – next time you are at a concert, walk across the room and pay attention as the tonality of the music changes – even the same Lead instrument can sound completely different 5 feet to the right or left – with bass notes being especially notorious for having a mind of their own! However in moving around, you can find your own “sweet spot” in the room, and enjoy the show like no other. Try moving next time you are unhappy with the sound – while a good sound engineer will strive to achieve a mix that is balanced for the overall crowd, there will inevitably be better sounding areas than others. Happy hunting!

</Tech Talk>

Buku was a massive success, and though the changeover was tight with technical issues rearing their ugly heads – we solved them before the downbeat and were able to kick the show off at the exact moment we were scheduled. It was our biggest show yet, with multiple rows of video panels lining the hall as the sound of TGM filled the world around us. For 90 minutes – 15 minutes longer than we were originally scheduled to play, before the festival decided they wanted the full Glitch Mob Experience – an entire hall of thousands were united as one.

Today’s Challenge: The sound of an empty room, or hall – or whatever listening environment – versus that of a full one, is literally a world of difference. Fledgling engineers, when put in a position of having to tune a system and make an empty room sound good, often overcompensate and feel the need to cut every offending frequency and boost the weak ones. Usually, this has done more harm than good as when the room is full and the downbeat hits, the show takes flight in front of thousands, and an overzealous engineer is left with an unnatural and hollow sound.

I have found you are better off doing only minor adjustments to the system, taking mental (or written) note of frequencies that are seriously offensive, and save any major EQing for the show. In other words, trust the engineers who built the system have done their job – once the room fills up with people (“water-bags”, as my Live Sound instructor fondly refers to them), the sound of the room will even out as the liquid of human insides absorbs most of the major reflections. Yes, you too are contributing to the sound of the show, and sound engineers and artists alike thank you mightily for being there and contributing to the cause!

To summarize, a few well-placed minor tweaks – along with proper alignments techniques – are way more efficient than drastic EQ cuts and boosts!

Today’s Highlight: I must say that mixing TGM in the heart of New Orleans, while experiencing the amazing food and culture the city has to offer, takes the award for Today’s Highlight. I could not be happier or more appreciative to work with such an amazing crew and band, who have the most energetic and supportive fanbase I believe this world has ever seen.

Our first day off is in Philadelphia, a few short miles from Independence Hall where the Constitution was signed. Among other things, I am proud to have learned the proper spelling is Philadelphia, not the Urban Dictionary-esque Philidelphia (I almost found this out the hard way, as WordPress seemingly does not spellcheck blog titles, I would’ve looked a total ass to my East Coast friends – but at least I didn’t try Phillydelphia).

The crew went in their own directions, some in groups and some solo, soaking up the drinks and food and vibe and experiences of the city, others spending their day at rest. It certainly does serve an admirable view, especially from 19 floors in the air:

Philadelphia, PA – home of the Cheese Steak

Today’s challenge: Waking up. It has been a while since I was so beat! Sleep is like a good relationship you damn-near forget to appreciate until it’s gone.
Today’s highlight: edIT and I went out to lunch, so we could talk about tuning the different sound systems on our tour, and touch base on how things have been going. I brought my laptop with Ableton into the restaurant so we could go over frequency analyzers, how to best use them in conjunction with our ears and achieve a sound that will translate well through any system. We crossed a spectrum of production topics, from shaping leads to layers of drums and fuzzy bass distortion, highly informative and relevant stuff I’m already applying to my own music as Anoctave. If you’re interested in edIT’s production techniques, I recommend checking out his Youtube page where you will find a wealth of information, presented in his own cohesive and comprehensive terms.

Tomorrow we’re back on the bus for a 15 minute drive to the Electric Factory, an actual converted electric factory in Philadelphia, that supports up to 3000 people. I am especially looking forward to mixing on a VDosc line array with PK Subs, driven by an incredibly dynamic band, one of the best combinations in the world.

Wow, so much to summarize in one post! The days are already flying by, and I would like to keep this blog current, so for the sake of efficiency I will try to .zip these two days into one condensed archive.

Our first show was in Portland, Maine, with the band and crew flights touching down a little over 12 hours before load-in. A brief round of drinks to reunite the team after our 4-day “vacation” between rehearsals and the actual tour, then the majority of us were lights-out before Midnight.

Our bodies are still reeling from the change in time zones, paired with Daylight Savings stealing an hour of our lives just days prior, but everyone manages to make it in time for our Bus call the next morning. Our first time seeing the bus, and she is beautifully laid out with condo bunks (!) for the crew, a nice area to chill in front and back, and fully stocked with food and drink requests made days earlier.

Me in my natural element – tightly packed living quarters

After a short ride we arrive at the State Theater, reminiscent of The Warfield in San Francisco, and greeted by a pleasant house crew eager to help unload the semi truck with all our gear, packed from end to end with millions of dollars worth of crucial equipment. The show went surprisingly well for the first day, with over 1600 fans filling the house with energy. The stage setup, coined The Blade, has finally been unveiled! I can’t post pictures yet but would imagine that you, the crafty GM fanbase, can find the show on Youtube – while it may not do full justice to the set, you will definitely feel the energy and warm reception the crowd shared through the night.

The following day at House of Blues in Boston proved to be even more successful, as the entire show went off flawlessly to a packed house. The venue is beautiful with a seasoned and hard-working crew, a giant standing floor of General Admission tickets, and two levels of mezzanine above. Once the doors open and the floodgates are released, its vibrancy and acoustics transform from cavernous to tight – all in a matter of minutes.

Boston House of Blues

<Tech Talk>Part of my job is tuning the sound system, and timing the delay between the subwoofers, sidefills, and mains. Regardless of how you tune the system, the show will be irreparably imbalanced if it isn’t aligned down to the millisecond, due to the physics of different parts of the sound system combining. I ensure we are perfectly aligned using phase tools found in SMAART, analyzers in Ableton, pink noise generators and oscillators, and most importantly my ears.

SMAART – not for dummies

A quick and effective method is to measure the distance between the subs and mains and use that as a starting point for your delay between speakers. Then play a sine wave with a frequency of the crossover point through the subs and one side of the PA. Make sure it is the same relative level coming through both sets of speakers. The sine wave should last about 100ms and loop every second, with a little “snap” on the front and back end (achieved with a -3 sustain envelope and zero release).

Then flip the subs out of phase and adjust the sub delay time until they are at their quietest. After that point, when you flip the subs back into phase they will be at their most constructive and powerful; this is a good time to tweak the delay by samples (fractions of milliseconds) until they match up seamlessly, if you used my recommended envelope they will “snap” simultaneously without sounding like the tone is “stretching”. It’s vital this value is accurate to the millisecond, as one millisecond can make the difference between a terrible sounding show and a great one, the latter being what you are going for!

</Tech Talk>

Today/Yesterday’s Challenge: The difference between mixing a band through a compact sound system vs. a line array is considerable, and takes some getting used to. Fortunately by knowing their songs in and out, the band’s energetic performance, paired with analyzation tools such as RTA mics and SMAART, and my ears, the system was hitting in all the right places, pumping between 105dB and 110dB of A-weighted sound pressure levels (in other words, full-bodied and impactful sound without being uncomfortably loud).

Today/Yesterday’s Highlight: Mixing the band on an Adamson and then Vertec line array with PK Subs were two of the most fun experiences I’ve had behind a console. The energetic feedback of the audience as they sang along to songs from an album released just weeks ago, and witnessing the full-scale production The Glitch Mob conveyed a sight and sound brimming with good omens.

We are in the middle of rehearsals, at the historic Red Studios in Hollywood, home to famous video shoots from Michael Jackson to Seinfeld. Our practice space is a massive warehouse enclosure, padded walls stretching in every direction blanketed with acoustic dampening material, held up by green-screen printed concrete floors, and a lofty wooden catwalk towering in the rafters above.

Red Studios, Hollywood

I am Glitch Mob’s FOH engineer, tuning and mixing their performance through state-of-the-art sound systems – controlling and balancing the overall mix of the band – translating their music into the analog world, for thousands to feel as a wall of sound vibrates the air and energy around us.

Worth noting is that I have admired and aspired to their work for many, many years.

The band members themselves, edIT, Ooah, and Boreta, are each legends in their own regard, known for pioneering the Beat scene in LA during the early 2000’s, putting Glitch on the map and making it a household name. Despite massive success they’re humbly down to earth, resonating with good vibes and a strong commitment to memorable performances, conveying all that positivity and more to their fans.

They are icons – possessing an inordinate knack for talent, persistance, and patience – touring with a professional and seasoned crew who bring the combined experience of Visuals, Lighting, Ableton programming, Sound, and Management for Skrillex, Sound Tribe, and Deadmau5 to name just a few.

Their stage/set design, coined “The Blade”, will be revealed in more detail on show night. Wish I could say more but for now I can say it is a beautiful representative of the performance, supporting an engaging show on multiple levels, and makes my job easier: accenting their massive drums (hint) and lead lines to rumble and resonate an auditorium of fanatic fans.

<Tech Talk>Their Ableton Live rig is a cause for salivation and salvation – this is the Holy Grail of Ableton setups, charting complex paths that would make a NASA-programmer turned Cartologist’s head spin. Fronted by Ableton pioneers Matt Davis [namethemachine], Chris Legaspi and Fred Carlton, they are pushing live performances to the next level for Bassnectar, Drake, Linkin Park, 30 Seconds to Mars, and now The Glitch Mob.

Nope! Not the full command station – just her nametag

Partial view of the command station

</Tech Talk>

Today’s challenge: With rehearsals starting at 6pm, and the band running their set until 6am, our sleeping pattern is a tricky one to shift into; though it does invoke interesting conversations at 4am, when guards are down and spirits are up. Topics interpreted through a haze of sleep deprivation draw parallels between producing a song and cooking a feast – instruments treated as ingredients, garnishing and spicing the mix with EQ, blended and balanced to fully access the senses. Comparing succulents to sound systems – crunchy highs, braised bass, limiting your lettuce – form amorphous definitions that vary between infinite meaning, and none at all.

Today’s highlight: After listening intently to an advance copy of the album for nearly 2 months, ingraining rhythmic patterns, phrase changes and core elements of the song firmly into my psyche, finally being able to mix the band on a proper sound system. A more compact representation of the line arrays we will soon be playing through, four PK Sound CX800 subs plus two CX215 tops make for a pretty badass rig, especially when all their drivers are emanating dynamic and well-produced music.

As the tour progresses, I will post updates and pictures here to log an incredible year that is sure to fly by, hopefully making history in the process!